Guilt Is Guilt Regardless Of Race Or Creed

COMMENTARY

April 24, 1987|KINGSLEY GUY, Editorial Page Editor

Racial bias is a social evil. So is murder, and brutal murderers should not escape paying the ultimate penalty for their crimes solely because statistics show a racial imbalance in the imposition of the death penalty.

Guilt is guilt, regardless of race, creed or national origin.

Fortunately, a majority of Supreme Court members understand that simple fact. This week, in a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that death penalty laws are constitutional, even if the data show the existence of a racial imbalance.

In this instance, the court recognized a legitimate difference between results and intent. That is, if the intent of the law is not to discriminate, then the results do not warrant abolishing the death penalty.

The decision makes sense. Death penalty laws are designed to administer justice on an individual basis. The individual should not escape the ultimate penalty for his evil deed because statistics do not reflect the social ideal of a color-blind society. If a person is guilty of a particularly heinous capital crime, he should be executed.

The ruling came in a Georgia case in which the defense used the findings of a University of Iowa law professor to build a case of unconstitutional discrimination. David Baldus examined Georgia death penalty statistics and found that between 1973 and 1978 people who killed whites were 11 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks.

In cases where juries had wide discretion in imposing capital punishment, the killers of whites were four times more likely to receive a death sentence. Throughout the United States, 95 percent of the people on death row killed whites, while blacks make up a far greater percentage of murder victims.

The statistics are troubling, but they say nothing about guilt or innocence and whether the people on death row deserve to be executed.

The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and it ought not be imposed without the utmost care and deliberation. In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in Furman vs. Georgia that adequate safeguards did not exist in death penalty statues and consequently capital punishment as practiced in the United States violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The court ruling was correct. At that time, state procedures were sometimes lax and there were even crimes on the books like desecration of a grave and mishandling of a dangerous reptile causing death that were capital offenses. In reality, the death penalty in these types of crimes was not imposed, but the fact that the statutes existed demonstrated the cavalier attitude with which some legislatures in the past approached the death penalty.

Yet, in declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, the high court left states with an out. Death penalty laws could meet constitutional muster if imposed only for heinous crimes and if applied uniformaly.

State legislatures, including Florida`s, promptly went to work writing new laws that would meet the constitutional test. Florida lawmakers narrowly defined capital cases and provided adequate safeguards, including automatic review by the state Supreme Court. The statute withstood constitutional scrutiny, and in 1979 John Spenkelink died in the electric chair at Starke, becoming the first person in the country to be executed against his will since 1968.

This week`s Supreme Court decision removes a major obstacle to continuing executions. Opponents of the death penalty will gather in their silent vigils on execution nights, claiming the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, but the people who wrote the Constitution obviously didn`t think so, since they mention it prominently in the Fifth Amendment.

Death is an appropriate penalty under certain, extreme circumstances. Contrary to the arguments of opponents, it does not cheapen human life. Instead, when imposed in the worst crimes, it demonstrates the value society places on human life and human dignity.

A man like Ted Bundy deserves his fate, and he should be put to death regardless of the color of his skin.